Dislocated Elbows are Quite Easy to Fix.

After our awesome visit to the Midwest for Christmas, our little family headed out in our 4-wheel-drive rental car to the north side of Lake Tahoe to stay in Truckee, CA in a cabin with some friends and their kids.

We had high hopes of sledding and skiing, but alas, there was no snow in Tahoe. So we decided to make the most of it and play at the playground, eat lots of food and have plenty of snow-less fun.

That is, until we were leaving a lovely brunch out in Tahoe City and Hugo grabbed Marty's hand in his left hand and mine in his right, and jumped off some stairs, swinging like a little monkey. We swung his legs in the air, let his feet hit the ground. A minute or two later, he was holding his wrist and telling us he was hurt, then he started crying that awful "it really hurts" cry and we knew something was wrong with our little man.

We got back to our cabin, inspected his arm - not finding any bruising or swelling on his wrist, and hoped a dose of ibuprofen and some cuddling would solve our problems. It didn't, and just a few minutes of listening to his cry made us realize we needed to head to the closest Urgent Care clinic.

We met with the doctor who took a look at Hugo's arm, did a little "snake bite" twist, stepped away and said, "Let's see, that should make all the difference." Wait, what? Yes, he then explained that Hugo had DISLOCATED HIS ELBOW and he had just POPPED IT BACK INTO PLACE. Thank God he didn't tell us he was going to do that, I would have flipped knowing that he was going to wrench my little boy's arm around to pop it back into joint.

The good news is that it was instantly better. Hugo was in so much pain and holding his arm so it wouldn't move before the doctor fixed it, and with a simple adjustment, everything was back to normal. Maybe a bit sore, but his spirits were 1,000% improved.

We did an x-ray, just to be sure that the dislocated elbow was the only problem. (We did show up saying that it was his wrist that was hurt since that is what he was holding, so they wanted to check it out.) Everything looked good, and Hugo was a total champ while the doc took pictures of his bones.

We took this video at the coffee shop we stopped at on our way back to the cabin, just a few minutes after we left the doctor's office.

Don't ask what he's talking about right in the middle, we have no idea what he's saying there, but what's really clear are his awesome dance moves and him exclaiming, "I feel better!" over and over again. 

He also spent the rest of the day talking to us about how he hurt his arm and the doctor fixed it, and how he  got to feed the doggie cookies (there was a giant dog in the office and Hugo was excited to give him some treats). 

We were so thankful that the injury wasn't serious and Hugo didn't need to get a cast. It was truly remarkable how quickly he was back to his normal self after having the elbow popped back into place. We're going to be extra cautious now with his arms and elbows, swinging and lifting from the hands will be minimal so it doesn't happen again.

In a (very) strange coincidence, two days later, our friends' 2 1/2 year old had the EXACT same thing happen to her and went to the same doctor to have it fixed! Poor little ones, let's just hope their little arms stay tough and it doesn't happen to either of them again.